I’ve purchased the DXO suite again after 3 years. Too long for an upgrade but the total cost in the “Holiday” (ie. Christmas) promo was only exorbitant not extortionate.
I have been happy with my Adobe sub (and will keep it for several reasons) but I decided in the end that PhotoLab gives me more pleasure from my photos. I tried the “PureRaw” route and it was/is a useful crutch. But there’s a quality (i.e. a ‘nature’) to the whole suite that the demosaic-noise-control alone, mixed with LR or another tool for colour/luminance/contrast management does not reproduce in my view.
I’m sure there will be annoyances and maybe even regrets. Unavoidable. Then, this forum, too, is another of the attachments I never quite resigned and I’m glad it continues, despite DXOs unwavering disinterest.
I know what you mean about the ‘disconnect’ (my word) between PureRAW and Lightroom.
For me, DeepPRIME and DxO Modules are must haves. But, I mostly prefer the editing flow of Lightroom (Classic). The latter is simply smoother; more performant, more obvious. Sure, there are a handful of PhotoLab features I would miss in Lightroom, but overwhelmingly it’s the two-application, two-file, two-step process that pushed me back to using PhotoLab for wildlife photos when v9 added the AI masks.
I still occasionally use Topaz Photo to fix ‘got it wrong in camera’ minor focus issues which puts me back into the two-up lifestyle. But that’s occasional so I can stomach it.
At first blush I was also impressed by the results on images that had issues and might otherwise be discarded, However, when used to enhance well captured images I found that it applied smoothing that diminished or completely removed very fine detail. After all, there is no free lunch.